This invention relates generally to gift card holders and more particularly to a device for holding a gift card packet while providing graphical, mechanical and audio enhancements, alone or in combination, to entertain the gift card packet recipient and add value the gift.
Transaction cards, stored value cards, or gift cards, as they are commonly called based upon their intended use, have become popular gifts. Gift cards typically comprise a stored value card whereby a certain cash equivalent value is encoded upon a magnet strip applied to the surface of the card. This stored value may be determined by the vendor prior to packaging and display for sale or, more commonly, is selected at the point of sale by the purchaser and loaded by the cashier using a magnet card reader/writer. While popular, gift cards are typically provided with a generic and impersonal design, typically identifying the associated merchant for which the card may be used to purchase merchandise, and therefore are not personalized in view of the intended recipient.
A further development in the marketing of gift cards includes enclosing a gift card within a sealed gift card packet. The gift card packet, known in the prior art, typically comprises two similarly sized sheets of card stock or heavy paper adhered to one another, one sheet on top of the other, to enclose a gift card therein. One of the sheets typically includes a magnet strip that may be read by a conventional magnetic card strip reader. Electrical or electromagnetic means connect the packet magnetic strip to the magnetic strip of the gift card itself, so that when information is received or transmitted via a reader to the packet strip, such information is conveyed to or from the gift card strip. Some gift card packets can be activated by scanning a UPC bar code located on the back of the packet, rather than swiping a magnetic strip.
Gift card packets are often presented for sale on display racks in stores, each packet being hung upon a display stand peg. A given area of a store will only support a certain number and size of display stands, given store traffic and other considerations, which makes allocation of display space an important marketing decision that may require selecting only certain high selling cards for display. Display of other items in the same store area will typically reduce the substantially finite space available for displaying gift cards and gift card packets.
In addition to the above considerations, gift card packets must fit within a set, allocated space in pre-existing displays. A gift card packet must not exceed 5.25″ tall and 4″ wide. These dimensions are an industry standard and are typically non-negotiable. In order to properly hang each gift card packet, the packet typically includes a J-hook hole (sombrero cut) with the exact dimensions of 1.875″ wide by 0.5″ high and be placed 0.1875″ from the top of the packet. Presently, the above requirements pertain to approximately 95% of all gift cards and gift card packets that are sold at retail.
Devices for recording, storing and playing back audio have been associated with greeting cards and the like, such as is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,577,018; 5,652,606 and 6,845,583. The audio circuitry typically includes a speaker that also functions as a microphone when recording a message, a control circuit, a memory circuit to provide random access memory, one or more switches, batteries to provide power to the device, and associated wiring and mounting hardware.
What is needed, therefore, is a device capable of readily holding a gift card packet and providing one or means to personalize the gift and also graphical, mechanical and audio enhancements, alone or in combination, to entertain the gift card packet recipient and enhance the value of the gift card to the recipient.